Prog imperfective drift in ancient Greek? Reconsidering eimi 'be' with present participle

In this paper, I reconsider the diachrony of the Ancient Greek periphrastic construction of eimi 'be' with present participle by means of Bertinetto’s recently proposed model for the development of progressive grams (a process called ‘PROG imperfective drift’). While Bertinetto’s proposal sheds new light on the diachronic development of the construction, at the same time the evidence from Ancient Greek brings to light the need for modification and further refinement of the model (most importantly with regard to the role of what I call the ‘stative’ function, next to the diachronic source(s) of the construction). I furthermore show that eimi with present participle never fully developed a (focalized) progressive function, which can be explained in terms of ‘constructional competition’

Prodikos zur Entstehung des Götterglaubens

Abstract A number of ancient texts ascribe to the well-known sophist Prodicus a theory concerning the rise of religion according to which early men came to regard and worship as gods all kinds of things useful to life. Modern scholars often claim that Prodicus also envisaged a second stage during which inventors of useful things came to be considered divine. The evidence adduced is a passage from Philodemus’ On Piety, which is then, more or less explicitly, considered superior to the other testimonies. The Stoic philosopher Persaeus is here reported to have briefly sketched and endorsed Prodicus’ theory in one of his works. However, a thorough syntactical analysis of the passage reveals that it confirms the rest of the evidence. The second stage obviously alluded to in the damaged text of the papyrus is without doubt ascribed to Persaeus himself.</jats:p

Gudarnas mänskliga gestalt -- vanföreställning, meningsfull symbol eller politiskt trick? [Elektronisk resurs] : Ett försummat problemkomplex i den antika filosofin

The article explores ancient thinkers's views on how the anthropomorphic image of the divine, a concept most of them held to be wrong, could have arisen. These views are to be strictly distinguished from attitudes to the myths about the anthropomorphic gods. The article presents a number of models that can be reconstructed from our texts. Of these, the dominant one claims that the idea of gods in human shape was a deplorable result of linguistic misunderstanding, an original metaphorical discourse about the divine having been wrongly taken in a literal sense. Other models present the anthropomorphic image of the divine as having been invented intentionally, either by shrewd politicians as a means to control the uneducated many, or by wise men who sought for a convenient method to symbolically refer to the unrepresentable, unspeakable Supreme Being. This latter theory, with its acceptance of the anthropomorphic representation of the gods (although of course not literally), is attested only very late, and there are good reasons for believing that this is not mere chance.Finally, the article touches upon the logically most attractive model, the theory put forth by Euhemerus, according to which the gods are presented in human form simply because they had once been human beings. The scholarly debate on Euhemerism is in need of thorough revision.   </p

Why it should be obvious that Euhemerus did not write his <em>Sacred History</em> to bolster ruler cult [Elektronisk resurs] : A critical assessment and an alternative theory

The idea that Euhemerus wrote to bolster ruler cult is wide-spread, although it has nothing to support it if the evidence is analysed in detail. In the present artcile, that task is undertaken and the serious problems accompanying the theory are discussed. If we take Euhemerus' project as an attempt to forward a new theory as to how the anthropomorphic image of the divine had arisen, every single question prompted by the traditional explanation turns out to get its solution.    </p